


In A Corn Maze

by KrysKrossZee



Series: Untitled Blaise/Hermione Marriage Law [6]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, College, F/M, First Dates, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Light Angst, POV Female Character, POV Hermione Granger, POV Third Person, Unspeakables (Harry Potter)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-18
Updated: 2020-11-18
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:26:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27622037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KrysKrossZee/pseuds/KrysKrossZee
Summary: Blaise asks one too many questions about an item that he finds in Hermione's room and brings up some painful memories for her which he wants to right.
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Blaise Zabini
Series: Untitled Blaise/Hermione Marriage Law [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1985642
Comments: 2
Kudos: 12
Collections: Hermione's Haven Harvest 2020





	In A Corn Maze

**Author's Note:**

> Another one shot as part of the Marriage Law fic I have yet to even start, and we get to see a different side to my boy.

"What's this?" Blaise asked, now holding something above his head having just flopped down on Hermione's bed moments before. He had a habit of making himself at home in her dorm room, something which made her both nervous but happy both at the same time. She enjoyed having him in here, even if they had all but abandoned the reason he had started spending time with her in the first place.

"What's what?" She asked from where she was currently sat on the spinning chair in front of her desk. Even though she wanted him to be comfortable there, she tended not to let herself get too close to him. When she did, she more often than not ended up sleeping with him, not that she had a problem with that either. She enjoyed sleeping with Blaise more than she cared to admit, but she had convinced herself that it was all part of the college experience.

This was the easiest way to convince herself that she wasn't catching feelings for him, that he wasn't managing to get under her skin in any way shape or form.

But the reality was that she did have feelings for him and that they had developed after the first time that they had slept together, after he had started tutoring her.

"This?" Blaise held up one of Hermione's keepsakes and she blushed beetroot red as she realised what it might look like to lsomeone who didn't know any better. "Granger, why would you have this on display?" He asked, an eyebrow raised.

Hermione quickly snatched the painted corn on the cob away and stashed it in a drawer of her desk. "It's not what you think." She told him, though her face remained flushed and her actions didn't exactly tell Blaise that she was innocent either. She wasn't hiding the object because of what it looked like but because she didn't know how to explain what it was to him either.

"And what do I think it is?" Blaise's tone was teasing, his eyes sparkling, and that lopsided grin that drove her wild fixed in place on his face as he got up off the bed and walked towards her.

"Please don't make me say it." Hermione covered her face with her hands. She could feel how hot her cheeks were beneath her fingers just before he was gently prising them away.

"So if it's not a sex  _ toy _ ," Hermione hated the way that he emphasised the way that he said those two words, but he seemed to relish the way that they rolled off of his tongue, "what is it?"

Hermione swallowed thickly as the blood rushed out of her face. She hadn't really thought about the origins of the corn for a while now, but when faced with the question she couldn't fight the memories down.

And that was the ironic part that she got to be plagued by the memories of her parents when they couldn't remember her at all. She got to suffer through all of her happy family memories as they were all tainted by the fact that her parents had no idea who she was.

"Have you ever been to a corn maze?" She asked after a few moments in which he had just stared at her for what felt like a horribly long time. She knew that he was waiting for her to explain, especially after her reaction, but it had taken her a few moments to swim through her brain fog to make her words form into sentences again.

"No, I don't believe so." His expression had softened and that grin of his had disappeared all together. Hermione had to pause again, were they really going to have an actual conversation that wasn't about schoolwork or about how they were never going to sleep together again? She wasn't sure if she was ready for this, but she knew that now she had started, she wouldn't be able to stop.

"But you're familiar with them? They're an American thing really, but back home, someone a farmer had made his own; it was pretty magical. My parents took me when I was seven or eight, before we knew I was a witch, and I spent hours in that maze. I wasn't lost, but I kind of wanted to be. I hated that I could work my way out of the maze in minutes so I'd go back in again and again. My parents were so bored and eventually they had to drag me out of there as it had started getting dark." Hermione took a breath, feeling tears starting to the prick at the backs of her eyes. "I threw a massive tantrum as children often do, and refused to go until they bought me that decorated corn ornament that someone was selling from the roadside. So I know how ridiculous it is, but I had to take it with me when I - when…" She trailed off.

Blaise's hand was on her shoulder now and he was giving her a soft sort of smile that she had never seen on his lips before. It wasn't the usual cocky one that she was used to seeing and in fact he wasn't the usual cocky person that she was used to seeing in her room at all.

"I'm sorry." He said softly as she looked up at him. "I'm sorry you had to sacrifice your relationship with them."

Hermione swallowed thickly and did her best to blink her tears away. As much as she had let her guard down with him, she wasn't willing to let him see her cry. They had grown close over the last few weeks but she wouldn't say that they were  _ that _ close.

"It is what it is." She said quietly as she pushed his hand off of his shoulder and stood up. She walked over to her bed, putting some distance between them again. She had let him see her vulnerable side once again and that made her more than a little nervous.

Blaise just gave a small nod as he watched her move around her room. He didn't follow, something that she was both grateful for and mad at him for in the space of the same second. She wanted him to comfort her, but at the same time she didn't. She hated her emotions sometimes. They made absolutely no sense at the best of times.

"How about we cancel today's session?" Blaise asked slowly, his hands now moving to shove deep down into his pockets. Hermione had never seen him retreat back into himself before but she imagined this was what it looked like. She then found that she hated herself even more for daring to be open and honest.

"Yeah, okay. See you." She said quietly, turning away and pretending to busy herself with the things that were on her bedside cabinet, all the while listening for the door which eventually opened with its usual creak and closed behind him with a dull thud. Hermione let out a sigh and sat down on the edge of her bed. This truly was a mess.

**

Hermione couldn't help but be confused as she stood in the chilly autumn air, her thickest jacket wrapped around her as tightly as possible. Blaise had asked to meet her, not only outside which was unprecedented, but also for some reason secured them both passes to leave campus. She hadn't been away from the college since the end of summer - she never saw the point when both Ron and Harry were busy with their auror training and it wasn't as if she could tell them where she had been or what she had been doing.

Blaise was late, which only made her wonder if this was some elaborate prank to humiliate her. It wouldn't be the first time she had been invited somewhere only for it to be a nasty trick. She didn't want to lump Blaise in with those people, but at the same time she couldn't exactly forget the person that he had once been.

She rubbed her hands together in an attempt to warm herself up and she was just toying with the idea of starting one of her little fires when she heard a voice from behind her.

"Ready to go, Granger?"

"Go where..?" She asked slowly, hoping that this time he might just tell her what he had planned, but the look on his face when she turned around to face him told her otherwise. She was out of luck.

"It's a surprise." He told her with that lopsided smile fixed in place on his face. She almost hated him for it, but at the same time she knew that that face was one of the only things that was keeping her sane in her college life.

"Why does this feel like I'm being kidnapped?" She muttered, half-teasing him, half-serious.

"Maybe you are." He hummed as he joined her. "Come on then."

Hermione rolled her eyes but she did fall into step beside him as they headed off of campus. Much like Hogwarts, it was impossible to floo from the grounds of the Unspeakable College. In fact, they'd had to get special permission to even practice magic in their dorms in the first place.

"*

Hermione froze and stared out at the open field in front of her. In the middle of the field was a corn maze. Her eyes were probably as wide as they had ever been before. Why had he taken her here of all places?

"Alright, Granger?" Blaise asked after a few moments, his voice a lot softer than she was used to coming from him. Hermione didn't know how to answer him. This was both one of the nicest things that anyone had ever done for her, and also one of the strangest.

"Is this a date?" She had to ask. Other than the Yule Ball (which felt like an entire lifetime ago) Hermione had never been on a date before. Sure, she'd been with Ron for the majority of her eighth year at Hogwarts, but they mostly just hung out in the Burrow or Grimmauld Place; he'd never actually taken her out anywhere.

"I -" Blaise started but he cut himself off before he gave a small nod. "Yeah. It is. I'm just too chicken to ask you out properly."

"Too chicken?" Hermione asked as she managed to tear her eyes away from the maze and turned to face him properly. "We've been sleeping together for how long?"

"Trust me, that doesn't mean anything." Blaise gave a soft chuckle and a shake of his head. "I realised the other day when you told me about the trip your parents took you to a place like this that  _ I _ wanted to take you to one. Is that weird?"

"I mean, kinda?" Hermione teased, though she couldn't help but grin. She knew that her cheeks were now bright pink, but she didn't particularly care. She had never really thought about going on a date with Blaise, but now that she was on one with him, she felt like it made perfect sense. He made her feel things that she never even thought were possible, after all.

"Oh shut up." Blaise laughed, pressing a kiss to her cheek before he - maybe a little hesitantly - took her hand into his. "Let's go check out this maze, yeah?"

Hermione nodded, still grinning, and maybe just a little bit too pleased that she was able to get under his skin. "Let's see if you can work out how to get out of the maze." She really was curious to see if he would be able to figure it out quickly or not. He was almost as clever as she was, and in some ways she supposed that he was even more clever than her, but mazes were Hermione's first love.

**

Hermione collapsed backwards onto her bed. It was safe to say that she was exhausted but extremely happy after what had to be one of the best days of her life. It wasn't at all what she had expected when Blaise had asked her to go off campus with him, but she was over the moon with the events that had transpired.

She honestly couldn't believe that Blaise had invited her on a date in the first place and the fact that he had kissed her at the end of the date and gone back to his own dorm - instead of following her into hers and expecting more than just kissing - told her that their relationship had changed. Hermione knew that things had changed for the better though and she hoped that there would be a second date.

She set the corn cob that Blaise had bought her down on her bedside table, smiling as she rolled onto her side to watch it. It was strange for her to know that he had actually listened to her when she had talked about her parents, that he had listened when she had tried to explain why the corn her parents had bought her all those years ago was special. He had tried to make their first date just as special and that told her that  _ he _ was special.


End file.
